Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Bros, No Hoes, Beer, Daggering, Painting.

I finally got the fuck out of dodge and took a vacation from everything to a city where all I would end up doing is painting, cooking, eating, and drinking...just like home and not getting paid. I picked Denver so I can finally meet and paint with some of the best graff writers in the game I've grown up admiring and biting. Nothing's changed, I just poop a lot more now.

This is the first sign I see flying into Denver. Correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like Denver has gotten one tornado in the last 15 years and those Mexicans never left.

After a few exchanges of racist texts and general confusion on pick up location, the homie East picked me up from the airport with his goon Rapes from Cincinatti. Totally ready to bro out and sketch, I needed a beer to get this vacation started on the good foot.

Before anyone freaks out the "Rapes" name, he does not condone rape of any kind nor does he support any actions of rape. He has this name for personal reasons none of which involved rape. Now here he is raping a book with his rape-ish hands. His hands are surprisingly gentle.

I should mention that East is a Chicago graffiti legend who has been writing on shit since I was born. Here is a self portrait from the 80's. Shit's real son!

It hurts to paint over dope shit like this Taste piece here. The shelf life of a freshly painted wall is a week max in the graffiti world because it's a very manic, impatient, sadistic genre of art. Its an unspoken rule that all writers understand and accept. We live through photos and other forms of documentation. With that said, it's time to buff and paint.

Dope Kema piece. Hope he got a picture.

Per usual, Rapes finished first and daggered anything and everything he could thrust his pelvis on.

I never get to paint large in Chicago so I decided to do the biggest piece I could before heading back home.

I also wanted to paint large so that who ever has to buff this piece will have to paint over every single nook and cranny.

For a married 40 year old father, East got down and finished second after Rapes. Dude still got it as evident in this burner. He also had to pick up his kid from school so I'm sure that pressure sort of helped. He also may have gotten some inspiration for his color scheme by how much I shat during the first day I was there.

Scribe from Kansas City was in town as well ready to get his paint on. I've been seeing his painting for years and have always been blown away by his work. Thumbing through his sketch book just solidified that point even more.

I'd still eat the shit out of this rabbit.

I took a break from painting and walked over to Phil's right near the wall. The sign says it all - must be 70 and up to enter.

What makes this better is that the sign was all pixelated and bent up. They just don't give a fuck and I can totally appreciate this.

I fit right in with the locals. They probably thought I was leftover Chinese trash from the old gold rush days. Conversation ranged from beer to beer and being drunk during the day.

I really needed to get my "bar" exam out of the way and since Denver is home to Coors, I thought I'd pay homage and make sure I was able to distinguish whether or not this bottle was cold.

After only spending $5.25 for two beers and chips and salsa, went back to the wall where the dudes finally got done. Little hands kind of freak me out...especially on drunken vintage fat cats.

Emit just pasted a giant sticker decal on the wall.

Denver was also home to the Great American Beer Festival this past weekend which meant a bunch of over knowledged beer nerds that live in their mom's basement would be around sniffing beer. Not to be outdone, a few Chicago beer buddies flew in for the fest and we all decided to visit a few breweries while in town. We also got an upgrade on our rental because Freddie was willing to fuck a fat chick. Taking one for the team = priceless.

New Belgium Brewery. Our mouth is about to get pummeled with beer.

Big shout out to Harry for setting up the VIP tour which gave us access to try almost every single beer New Belgium has to offer including all of the Lips of Faith series. This is BEFORE the tour starts.

Oh, and free food.

I won't bore you with all the details of the brewery which was fascinating but I will say that this brewery has expanded and expanded. The amount of beer they produce is mind blowing and never thought the operation was this large. We had the Bear Republic beer (another very respectable brewery) dudes with us in the tour group and even they were in awe of this operation.

The lab where white people make sure they make beer minorities won't like. Haha I keed, I keed. They're infusing heroine.

Big bike theme and the decor reflects it all over the brewery.

The magic of beer happening.

There's also a twisty slide which I think is better for a fire because now you'll have fun escaping a possible brush with death.

It really doesn't get any fresher than this. Right off the fucking line! This is a new one that they haven't even released into the public yet.

700 bottles a minute. This factory would make Laverne and Shirley's vagina explode.

Here's Freddie cashing in on the free upgrade we got. Man, Wisconsin people look weird in Denver.

I would be hot as a female beer ranger. Real Talk.

As if drinking almost a case of beer at New Belgium wasn't enough, we Southwest to Oskar Blues brewery in what looks like a hostage warehouse from the outside.

But inside...it still looks like a hostage warehouse.

It looked like they rented a bunch of people and furniture from a thrift store pretending to have a good time.

They did have an awesome flight that would put anybody on their ass upon finishing. They also had a food buffet for $8 that fucking sucked. You would think for all the time they put into their beer, a little seasoning on a BBQ buffet would be in order. I felt like a grandparent eating the food. The kitchen motto should be "sodium free since '83."

Next up was Avery Brewery located in what looked and felt like a strip mall sort of tucked away in the back.

A smaller brewery with a decent kick to the beer.

Got wood?

I don't remember what I drank at this point nor did i care. The long day mixed with the altitude mixed with travel just put me on my ass.

This is after a full day of drinking. My liver must have looked like rat shit after this day.

In case I felt homesick, there are Whole Foods Markets all over Denver and this massive one in Boulder that had one of the best meat departments I've ever seen in my life. My own sausage stick got hard looking at the variety.

Did I mention that it looked like this every night I was there? I can see why people are happy here.

So after puking and cooking dinner, I passed out fast knowing full well that I had a day of painting and cooking ahead of me.

Emit supporting gay rights with his excessive use of the rainbow.

Here's East ready to battle everyone for no reason. He always wins...in his head.

Emit, Rapes, Vogey

Scribe, East

I love painting large. It may not look big in this photo but I was on a step ladder the whole time and apparently in the mood for some candy corn looking at this color scheme.

Taste murdered his section of the wall.

After cooking dinner and chillin, I felt like hitting up a place where I wasn't surrounded by couples, married folk, and MMA fighting on TV. East suggested the ol' Bull and Bush.

They brew their own beer with this awesome guide to what you'll be tasting, smelling, and eventually puking back up.

Judging by the giant bottle of Sriacha, I'm going to assume they do a killer bloody mary.

They also have one ounce pours which always helps the ol' pocket book as well as taste buds. One of these glasses came home with me. Can you guess which one?

So day three of painting but scaled back with Taste, Rapes, and myself.

I feel like this bboy's expression should be "MEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SEEEE???."

So people have been telling me to try the green chile in Denver claiming it to be a staple and I'm not one to shy away from what the locals tell me.

The chile is basically a condiment and dredged over everything. Surprisingly, I shit before I ate this and didn't poop for a few hours after eating this.

Taste with another burner.

Here's my psychadelic, hungover, sunned out, unproportioned mess of a piece. I was a fucking wreck by the end of this. I had no idea what I was doing or thinking.

Looks like a box of crayons melted over a furnace and then someone diarrheaed all over the melted crayons and then ate it and pooped it back out.

How fucking scary is that taco? The taco is so crazy that he is saying hello to himself. And yes that is yet another Rapes piece under the loco taco. He would end up doing 5 burners while he was out here. Needless to say, he had a lot of tips on carpel tunnel and tendinitis. Most of the tips involved some form of jerking off or daggering.

After a much needed nap, I woke up to meet college friend Sue, her hubby, and niece over at the famed Cherry Cricket to have a "Cricket Burger." This place was famous to begin with but with the magic of Man vs. Food, this place expanded and is crowded on the regular. The burger was okay, nothing special and/or picture worthy. This makes me realize that the host of Man vs. Food is just a fat dood that likes to eat but knows nothing about food...like most TV food personalities. Lesson learned - fat people like all food.

The highlight of the evening was visiting One Up. A bar filled with original 80's and 90's arcade games!!! All games were a quarter each! It's like I've died and went to Asian heaven!

They also had a wall lined with pinball games and a full fucking bar. Nothing better than playing Q Bert and The Simpsons drunk.

Only thing I didn't really like were these giant jenga things that would make the loudest, most startling fucking noise once it toppled over. Look at this little shit douche. No one looks tough playing Jenga, go get a fucking haircut dick.

It's a mission of mine to try Pho in any city I visit. Pho 79 is Este's spot for this Vietnamese staple bowl of Honda heaven.

I was not let down. The broth was lighter than I was used to, but still flavorful with good cuts of beef, flavorful onions and plentiful proper accoutrements. I'm working my way up to having pho in Vietnam one day where I will eat it everyday for every meal and get Syphillis from a local donkey.

A bowl of soup and immediate loading of over 1500 spray cans equated to the runs.

After a decent run, loading/unloading paint, I figured why not squeeze out one more piece while doing my laundry?

I had to end this spraycation on a good note and the prismacolor barf piece I did wasn't a good way to end things. I tried a simpler piece with a little more direction and precision. I was happy with it...time for some beer.

Went to the Capitol Hill area and found this all Belgium bar called the Cheeky Monk complete with dream sparkles on the tap.

Rare to find a Russian River Tempation on draft in Chicago, so this was definitely a treat for me. A fucking rare $8 treat.

Walked along to the Irish Snub where anybody but the Irish were inhabiting the space.

Toned down the beer style and price with a simple Rye Lager.

Streets of London without the cool London part.

Just did a Jameson shot here before getting picked up for my dinner.

WORD.

Checked out the Japanese/Latin fusion stylings of Zenga. A Ricky Sandoval joint located in what reminded me of what happened to the South Loop area in Chicago. Lots of room, industrial style lofts, and a shit load of dog walking going on.

We opted for a few little plates but the most interesting item was the hot and sour soup. Foie Gras dumplings? Yes please...except you could barely taste it because the dumplings were the size of a baby testicle.

What I can't dig is a faucet that doesn't work when there is soap all over my fucking hands. How the hell do you work this thing anyways? Does an ax come with this faucet? Did a beaver craft this sink? I felt a little violated seeing this huge log come out the wall.

Ended the night at El Diablo where you guessed it, its a Mexican themed bar. Had a tasty Michelada and called it a night. I was over my limit of just liquid consumption and thought I was going to shit a brown rainbow.

This is the last image of Denver that I have. D bags getting yelled at by a tiny gay trainer inside playing Lil Wayne on speed right next to the breakfast burrito spot Este took me to. Denver, you will be missed.

Gotta give a huge shout out to East for housing two loud mouths, providing paint, driving everywhere, making drinks, painting, and all around being a good dude. Thanks to Emit for daggering me in the face first while I was sitting on the couch relaxing, and showing me around town. Scribe and Rapes, always a good time chilling and painting. The beer crew of Tom, Jeremy, Steve, and Freddie for an epic beer Friday and last but not least Sue for being a trooper and hanging on a weekday and taking advantage of my discount card.